Question

I don’t know why but this code is not working ? Why would it not ? I guess it is because scope problem I am having here :

function washAway(obj) {
    alert($(obj)); // says HTML Object which is fine
    setTimeout(function() {
        alert($(obj)); // says undefined
        $(obj).fadeOut("slow", function() {              
            $(this).remove();
        });
    }, 2000);
};

Answer 1

At the point where the function in the timeout executes, it has no way to know what obj is – it was a parameter passed into the method where the timeout was set up, but the function inside has no reference to it.

An alternative approach is to write a jQuery plugin to wait before it acts like this:

function($){ //to protect $ from noConflict()
   $.fn.pause = function(duration) {
       $(this).animate({ dummy: 1 }, duration);
       return this;
   };
}

Then you can use:

$(obj).pause(2000).fadeOut("slow", function() { $(this).remove(); });